A Surplus of Stories
by ArtisteFish
Summary: A collection of Inuyasha drabbles of varying lengths set during various times before, during and after canon.
1. Salt-Mine

~A Surplus of Stories, a collection of Inuyasha drabbles~

Salt-Mine

*set post-canon*

* * *

She couldn't have been more on edge if there'd been a cliff under her feet.

Her breath was caught in her throat, eyes and ears and every sense trained on him and him alone, waiting desperately for his reaction.

"Well? What do you think?!"

He sat next to her, bowl in hand, chopsticks still raised to his mouth, chewing thoughtfully, his eyes closed in concentration.

He swallowed, then raised the bowl to his lips, sipping slowly at the broth.

It had taken her so long to get this right – if he didn't like it now, after all that hard work….

Why was he taking so long to respond?

He swallowed the liquid, then sat for a moment, evidently still mulling over the taste in his mouth.

And then he gave his verdict.

"The noodles are good, but it needs more salt."

She could have strangled him.

That's just what she got for feeding him sodium-laced legal addictive substances for so long.

"There _is_ no more salt."

Despite her deadpan voice, he seemed not to get the hint and plunged on "We'll just get some more then."

She was bodily resisting the urge to tug sharply on his little doggy-ears.

"With what? Salt is expensive here Inuyasha, in case you haven't noticed, and I'm not trading anymore of my belongings just to make you ramen!"

Apparently he still wasn't getting the danger he was in as he responded "Just trade one of your kimonos – you look better without them anyways!"

His roguish smirk abruptly fell as one of her chopsticks smacked him across the cheek.

"Hey! You coulda stabbed me in the eye with that thing!"

"Look, unless you sniff out a salt mine or somehow find a mountain of gold, it's not getting any saltier, so just deal with it!"

She turned away with a huff, and suddenly Inuyasha _could_ smell salt – the kind he hated.

Finally, he got his mistake.

"Aw geeze, c'mon Kagome, don't cry! I didn't mean it."

Putting down his bowl of homemade ramen and scooting closer to her, he reached out and pulled his wife into a hug.

She sniffled and her eyes remained scrunched in an angry way, but she didn't pull away or fight back, so he figured she'd be okay.

"Look, I'm sorry I said it needed salt. It did taste good. Not exactly the same, but still good. I was just trying to help!"

She sniffled again and wrapped her arms around his torso as she said thickly "I know, I just… I wanted it to be just right! I know how much you used to love ramen, and I just wanted to make you happy!"

Kagome was surprised to hear Inuyasha laugh good-naturedly, his voice warm as he said "Idiot woman, you think I need a damn bowl of noodles to make me happy?"

She paused, looking up at him awkwardly from her spot against his chest as she said meekly "Uh… yes?"

He laughed again, and her heart did little cartwheels at the sound.

"Stupid, you do a fine job of that without the noodles."

* * *

*Author's Note:

Aah, married life.

Full of ups and downs and failed meals.

But as long as it's full of love, that's what really matters.


	2. His Voice From The Ground

~A Surplus of Stories, a collection of Inuyasha drabbles~

His Voice From The Ground

*set during Kagome's imprisonment in the Shikon Jewel*

* * *

At first, it seemed that the Higurashi family really had gone insane. Yuka, Eri, and Ayumi watched as they ran into the old shrine and fell to their knees on the dirt, calling Kagome's name into the ground.

They were distraught, and that frightened the three teenagers.

Why would they be acting this way?

They were yelling something about a well, disappearing. All three girls vaguely remembered that there had once been a well in this building, but they still couldn't understand the family's distress.

Sure there was no well now, not even a hole, but holes could be filled, wood removed.

So why were they calling to Kagome as if she were under the ground?

They tried asking questions first, but the frantic family members had little attention for anything but their calling, and so the girls stood at the door and watched, too scared to leave but too confused to offer any help.

The longer they watched, the more resolved they became that the family must have snapped – maybe they caught one of those strange diseases Kagome always had. But then… why wasn't she here?

Something had to be done – they either had to leave, or try to break the family out of their panic.

But then they heard the response from beneath the ground.

There was no mistaking that rough, masculine voice and angry attitude.

Kagome's boyfriend was yelling to her family from a very far-off sounding place.

And the family was completely unfazed as they shouted back, asking fervently about Kagome's safety, and where she was.

Yuka, Eri, and Ayumi crept down the stairs, listening, unable to compute what they were experiencing.

What on earth was going on?

And then the voice was gone – he was off, apparently, to find Kagome… wherever she was... whatever that meant.

"Wha- what just happened?"

"Kagome's boyfriend…."

"Where was that coming from?"

The confusion and shock of the three young girls was not shared by the family. In fact… they now seemed relieved.

Souta turned to his mother, hiding his face in her apron and shaking quietly, fighting back his tears as he tried to be tough… tough like his hero, Inuyasha.

His mother absently patted his hair, staring at the ground where the well once was.

Souta looked up at her with bleary eyes, saying in a strained voice "He'll find her, right? Inuyasha… Inuyasha can do anything, can't he?"

His mother looked down at him, confidence permeating the shadows of worry in her eyes as she said "Of course he will. Don't worry Souta – Inuyasha will save Kagome."

* * *

*Author's Note:

This was originally going to be a full story, but... I really have nothing else to add other than what I wrote.

I just wish I could have seen Kagome's friends' reactions to finding out the truth about the well because, obviously, there's really no way to hide it now.

And I wanted to write their reactions, but... I just can't figure out how it should go! I'll be working on it.


	3. They Call It Love

~A Surplus of Stories, a collection of Inuyasha drabbles~

They call it Love, but that's not quite right

*set indeterminately after Kagome's return to the Feudal Era, in Inuyasha's POV*

* * *

They just didn't understand.

None of them did.

Not even Kagome.

Yes, he had loved Kikyo. He once loved her very much. He didn't trust her, but he loved her.

How could he not, after all those years of loneliness and rejection?

When she came back, he still loved her. In a much different way – in a way he could ignore most of the time, until he saw the glow of her soul collectors, but there was still love in his heart for her.

And he loved Kagome. He had finally told her, after she had returned and he figured three years was too long to go without hearing it. He had loved her almost since they first met – since she first talked back to him, standing her ground and matching his temper, treating him like an equal.

She was so happy when he told her – her whole face lit up and she cried.

But in a way it irked him. Was that all she thought it was?

Did she think 'he loved her', and that was that?

He had loved Kikyo, and look where that had gotten them.

He loved Kagome in a different and infinitely stronger way, but that wasn't all there was to it.

His feelings for her didn't start or end with 'love'.

She was his other half.

Without her, he was incomplete.

She didn't seem to understand that.

She didn't get that for the three years apart from her, he felt he hadn't drawn a full breath the entire time.

He hadn't worn a full smile.

He hadn't had a complete thought.

He certainly hadn't fought at full strength.

He was never completely happy, never completely sad, never completely angry.

He existed in halves, until the day she came back through the well and brought back what he was missing.

He loved her, but that was his heart. There were other people there, in his heart, and they had different claims on different kinds of love that were found there.

But Kagome… she was in his heart, in his head, in his arms and legs, in his eyes and ears and nose (he never realized how incomplete the world was without her scent until the day it came back) and in every fiber of his being, and that was a claim that no other being held over him.

He loved her. Of course he loved her. But it had always been more than that.

They were born to be with each other, and that meant more than any human could define in a word.

Without her, he was only half a person – he could never reach his full potential.

He wondered if she realized this for herself; he knew she had felt the same while being stuck in the future – she had been all too willing to tell him just how incomplete she had been without him.

But she still thought such feelings could be summed up with one word.

He humored her and said "I love you" back as many times as she declared those words with feeling because really, how else was he going to tell her all she meant to him?

It just didn't seem fair though, that the only way he could communicate their true bond in words was to say something that could easily be said to others – that she _would_ say to others whom she loved in a different way than him.

He thought he had found an answer in the act of intimacy, where just for a moment they could truly complete each other, physically, emotionally, spiritually… but the limits of a physical body could never fully convey all he felt for her, and so he would give and take what he could, and hope she had at least caught a glimpse into the chasm of need and longing and love that was his perception of her.

He had never been one for words, and so he suffered a little with the inability to ever really tell the girl that was his world, his universe, his whole existence exactly how intensely important she was to every sense and thought and feeling that ever coursed through his mind and body.

So he continued to call it love, and hoped that someday she'd get what he really meant.

* * *

*Author's Note:

Just a rambly look at Inuyasha's feelings towards Kagome, or how I see his feelings towards her.

I just feel like what they have is a lot more complicated than what the word 'love' usually connotes. Maybe for some people it means something this deep, but we all know there are tons of different types of love, and I feel like Kagome and Inuyasha share a very special type of love that you just don't find everyday, and don't usually think of when you hear the word.

I know I used to be really confused about their relationship (back in the day before the series finished) and I feel like it's only recently that I've come to understand just how intense and complex their relationship is, so basically... I wanted to try and put my understanding of it all into words, which resulted in this rambly drabble thing. Which hopefully made some sort of sense. :3


	4. Stubbornness

Stubbornness

* * *

"So…" Inuyasha said coldly, his eyes holding a grimness that Kagome hadn't seen since before their separation, "after all we've been through… after all the foes we've defeated… you're just going to give in to this without a fight."

Kagome froze, her former melancholy mood quickly being replaced by anger. "It's not 'giving in' Inuyasha, it's just life! Everyone dies. Some of us… earlier than others."

He flinched away from her, his jaw set and teeth clenched. "And you're just gonna accept that?"

She stared at him, not surprised by his attitude, but still at a loss with how to help him understand this… accept it.

"Inuyasha, what do you expect me to do? I'm just a human!"

He turned to face her so quickly she nearly fell over, his hands coming out to grab her arms and stabilize her, his face close to hers and eyes intense. "Don't you ever say that. Who defeated Naraku, huh? Who wished the Jewel out of existence? Who traveled 500 years across time and space to save the life of a half-breed? Kagome, maybe you can believe that time is more powerful than you, but I can't."

Her throat was dry as she swallowed, emotions running too close to the surface for her to speak.

Inuyasha's gaze softened, but his eyes didn't leave hers as he said with conviction "We've gone through too much for something like death to tear us apart. Now that I've got you back, I ain't lettin' anything take you away again."

* * *

*this could either be 'him outliving her' or 'her getting sick or getting a disease or something that's gonna kill her early' - take your pick

(although I kinda see this as being part of a fic I wanna write where they go on a journey to retrieve this magical object that will lengthen life like in the legend of Urashima Taro)

**even though I don't really believe he'd outlive her, I think that if he did have a longer lifespan, he wouldn't just 'go with it'. He'd do everything in his power (and beyond his power) to stay with her for as long as he possibly could. Inuyasha is too stubborn for his own good, but I love that about him.


	5. Modern Methods of Torture

Modern Methods of Torture, an Inuyasha ficlet

*Set in canon, in Kagome's era

* * *

Inuyasha's senses had never been on such high alert. There were just too many smells, too many sights, too many people for him to let his guard down. And Kagome… poor Kagome was so blissfully unaware that there was any danger at all as to make it so he had to have eyes and ears for her sake too. She led him by the hand, her face broken into a giant smile as they weaved between tired, sweaty people in foul moods over a fake cobble-stone road surrounded by plaster buildings.

The combined aroma of body odor, cooking oils, sickly sweet sugar and grease made for a potpourri so revolting that Inuyasha was obliged to nearly hold Kagome in his arms as they walked just so his nose would have something else to focus on. He ended up with his arm wrapped around her anyways after one too many hurried humans bumped into her without a word of apology or a passing glance. Kagome's small hand grasping the back of his red sweatshirt was the only thing that kept him from going after the fools and teaching them a lesson.

They hadn't walked far into the nest of sensory overload before Kagome turned in his one-armed grip to look up at him, smiling brightly and pointing at one of the structures built on the premises. Inuyasha followed the path of her finger and froze in abject horror at the sight of a massive metal snake, sliding over a steel frame at speeds that could rival Koga. The half-demon's sharp eyes caught the dozens of humans strapped onto the metal demon, their faces ranging from idiotic euphoria to the kind of terror-filled screaming Inuyasha had only ever seen on villagers about to be devoured. And Kagome was still staring wide-eyed at the death-trap as if it looked… _fun_.

"C'mon Inuyasha, let's get in line!"

Inuyasha could only stare at her with eyebrows raised into his hairline, trying to figure out what was wrong with his human companion. Had she gone blind? No… her eyes were staring intently into his, darting back and forth as she waited for his response. Was she deaf to the horrified screams of those poor humans? It was possible – the only thing protecting his own ears from having a permanent ringing in them was the baseball cap she had made him wear, and she had no such protection to muffle the sounds. Was… was she just going crazy? Maybe there really _were_ demons here and she was possessed. She had assured him time and time again that there were no demons in her time, but then… what did she call the giant metal monster before them leading helpless humans to an early grave?

"It's just a rollercoaster Inuyasha. It's fun!"

He looked slowly to the 'roll-coasty-thing' again, then just as slowly back at her, his face growing more dismayed by the second. "You really have gone insane, haven't you?"

Her responding eye-roll and huff were so 'Kagome' that he was forced to admit she was in her normal frame of mind, but still… what on earth was she thinking? "It's perfectly safe Inuyasha; thousands of people ride it every day, and they come away from it fine! Just give it a try – I'm sure you'll enjoy it!"

Inuyasha was so close to resisting. His mouth was open for a tirade, his arms crossed defiantly, hundreds of reasons why this was the stupidest idea she'd ever had on the tip of his tongue, and then… then her eyes got all wide and her lip went pouty, and she said in a soft, sad, defeated little voice "Don't you trust me?"

He tried to glare at that face; tried to make his frown stick and actually mean it, but there was just no way he could possibly say 'no' to that question. Sure this was crazy; sure he'd probably regret this; sure he might not even make it out alive to have any regrets at all. But he did trust her, and he damn well wasn't going to let a stupid metal snake break such trust.

With a loud, frustrated growl, Inuyasha grabbed Kagome's hand, stomping off towards the ridiculously long line for the ride, his sneakers scuffing the ground angrily and his other hand jammed in the pocket of his new blue jeans.

…

To her credit, Kagome didn't utter a single "I told you so" as they stepped shakily off the ride and Inuyasha dragged her full-speed back to the start of the line to ride again.

* * *

*Author's Note:

The last two times I went to Disneyland by myself (I went to draw people for class… I didn't even ride anything :P) I couldn't help thinking '… I bet Inuyasha would hate this place.' Like I just imagined him looking at the rides and instantly planning for worst case scenarios, like how he'd get to Kagome and where they'd want to jump to safety. But I also think that once he got a taste of adrenaline _without danger_ , he'd be hooked.


	6. Green Thumb

Green Thumb, a three-year separation ficlet

*this might turn into a longer fic later

* * *

For several days the sky over Jinenji's herb farm had been filled with an oncoming storm. At first he'd hoped the dark clouds meant rain, but as the massive tidal wave of black passed over his village, he had been proven _very_ wrong. Demons, not water, were what made up _this_ dark cover.

Jinenji's first inclination had been to hide, but when lesser demons began to drop from the storm clouds in a twisted mockery of rain, the half-demon summoned his courage to defend his helpless (and quite frankly spineless) neighbors from the threat of death. The demons didn't bother his small village for long though, passing on to a different target, and Jinenji wondered briefly that their destination seemed to lie in the same direction as Kagome and Inuyasha's village. With what he knew of his demon slaying friends, it was likely more than coincidence.

When the sky didn't clear the first day, he'd been worried. When the sun remained blotted out for several days later, he'd been terrified. But almost as quickly as it had come, the darkness vanished, and Jinenji could feel the earth under his feet heave a relieved sigh. Whatever had happened, it was over now.

It had been four days since the clouds had vanished, and the event was quickly pushed to the back of Jinenji's mind as he struggled to right his beloved plants after days without sunlight and warmth. He tended to them with the utmost care, reaching out with his demonic aura to prompt their tiny sparks of life to keep growing, keep trying. The humans in the village were fickle, wanting his help one moment and cringing at his monstrous form the next, but the plants never judged him. They welcomed his presence, blooming and sprouting at his earnest promptings and diligent labor. All other concerns about demons and ominous clouds could wait until his treasured plants were thriving again.

And then Inuyasha showed up.

He blew into their village with wind under his feet, his hair a tangled mess and breath coming in gasps. He'd never looked so disheveled; he'd never looked so lost. The growing despair which filled the half-dog-demon's eyes sent the other half-demon's soul quaking. Such a warrior should never wear a look as that. Jinenji instantly feared the worst.

"Has… has something happened to Kagome?"

Inuyasha shook his head, but in his face was an expression of pain so intense that Jinenji asked if he'd been injured. The white-haired man only brushed off the question and said urgently "There's no time to explain. You _must_ come with me."

Jinenji nodded, unable to say no to such a demand, but paused to add "I'll just tell Ma to hold supper –"

But Inuyasha shook his head before Jinenji could finish, his bangs falling across his eyes as he said with forced calm "No, you don't understand: we need your help Jinenji, and we need it for more than a day. The forest… the forest is dead. We'll need your help for _months_."

The earth-boy was shocked, stunned, confused by Inuyasha's words. The forest was dead? How could a whole forest die? It was a tragedy to be sure, but why would such a thing disturb the unflappable Inuyasha so deeply? And how could he leave his garden, his home, his place of refuge for months without his care? The plants would all surely die without him, and not only would his village suffer because of it… he would too.

"But…" he began, his voice quiet and hesitant, "I can't leave my garden unattended for so long a time. There must be someone else –"

"You can't say no!" Inuyasha barked, his eyes losing some of the pain as they filled with a raging fire, "Don't you dare say no, Jinenji! I don't care if I have to tie you up and drag you back myself, you are _going_ to save The Tree!"

Jinenji couldn't help but cower at the ferocious intent of the other half-demon's words, sure that such a threat could and _would_ be easily carried out should he decline again. But he sensed something beyond the anger, deeper than the fire and threats: Inuyasha was afraid. Forcing himself to face the dog's wrath, Jinenji swallowed and opened his mouth to speak, his blue eyes catching Inuyasha's yellow ones and holding them with boldness he didn't know he possessed.

"What tree, Inuyasha? What's going on?"

Some of the fire fled that yellow gaze, and Inuyasha looked small and lost as he responded in heavy tones "The Sacred Tree… the Tree of Ages. It's dying. That tree is supposed to last for centuries… for another 500 years." His eyes darkened, and he was no longer looking at Jinenji, but staring beyond him, seeing something only his eyes could see. "That tree connects our world to Kagome's, and if it dies… she might never come back."

* * *

*Author's Note:

anyone else notice that after the gang defeats Naraku, Inuyasha's forest is like... decimated? All the grass and trees and whatnot are gone or dead or dying and every time I see that I'm like '... WHAT ABOUT THE SACRED TREE?!'

also by the time Kagome gets back, the place is lush and green again, and in the anime Jinenji is hangin around the village, and... yeah, all of that combined to put this fic idea into my head.


End file.
